A Book, a Boy, and a Body

Kids never cease to amaze me with their natural curiosity and limitless enthusiasm for things that inspire them! Our son, age 5, recently amazed us with his artistic (and scientific) rendition of the human body. As is often the case around here, the jumping off point was a book he read before bed with his daddy, The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body, by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. (We love this series of science discovery books. They're well-illustrated by the talented Bruce Degen, and offer lots of detailed information about each topic in a very kid-friendly format.)


Upon waking the next morning, KID 1 informed us, "I'm going to make the human body today!"


"Oh. Okaaaaay...how do you plan to do that?" I inquired, my curiosity piqued.


I offered clay, but he declined. He said he needed paper, markers, and paint.


"Great!" I responded enthusiastically, relieved that we had all those supplies on hand.



He proceded to set his easel area, completely unassisted, with every paint pot we own, each with its own paintbrush standing at the ready.

I noticed he had found the Magic School Bus book from the previous evening's bedtime reading, along with a larger lift-the-flap book of the human body. Both were propped at his feet, ready for close inspection.



I taped up his paper and he set to work immediately, starting with an outline of a body. Then he was flipping through his books feverishly, stopping on pages that intrigued him to add an organ here, a blood vessel there, a representative bone or an important muscle. The end result is amazing (and funny: note the green blob of brain!).



When he finished his painting, I asked him about each part he included in his body and he matter-of-factly named each one for me so I could label it. Kidneys. Esophagus. Windpipe. Large intestine. Small intestine. The villi inside the small intestine. All the while, I'm thinking "Is this normal? He's only five! How does he remember all this, yet can't identify letter "Gg" correctly?"



Thank God for good books that feed my child what I didn't know he craved. Amazing.